Author of The Inconvenient Indian takes RBC Taylor Prize
Thomas King won the $25,000 RBC Taylor Prize last week for his non-fiction book, The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Natives in North America. King taught creative writing and native literature at the University of Guelph until 2010, when he retired to focus on his writing.
King is no stranger to critical acclaim. Because of his work – including fifteen published novels and the radio show The Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour – King was made a member of the Order of Canada. His most recent work has been sweeping Canadian literature awards, including a $40,000 prize for British Columbia non-fiction.
The Inconvenient Indian is a funny, personal take on 500 years of relations between native and non-native people in North America. For King, this work came from seven years of research and a lifetime of contemplation. It is clear that for a scholar of history like King, knowing where we come from determines how we see ourselves now.
The book begins with a similar sentiment: “Most of us think that history is the past. It’s not. It’s the stories we tell about the past. That’s all it is. Stories. Such a definition might make the enterprise of history seem neutral. Benign. Which, of course, it isn’t,” said King.
Much of King’s previous writing has been fiction, and as such, he used storytelling strategies to tell this history. With that premise, he examines the roots of common Canadian perceptions of native people. Themes ranged from discussions of Hollywood’s “noble savage” stereotype to the legal basis of Indian status.
In his work to shed light on the untold or unpublicized perspective of First Nations, King stated that, “For the most part, the historical sources are there. It’s just that many historians haven’t used part of the history. So they use one part that they like to use, the part that supports their theories or their thesis or their idea of how the world should be or the way in which they see it. They leave out the other part, but the other part isn’t gone. That part is still there.”
Cara Wehkamp at the Aboriginal Resource Centre (ARC) spoke about the importance of educating oneself about history. “We know about cycles of trauma and cycles of violence and cycles of poverty. This isn’t always a long history. That’s one thing we hear often, that this happened so long ago, just get over it. The reality is it wasn’t that long ago,” said Wehkamp. “We need to have that historic understanding so that we understand there is a reason why we have the situation today. We need to really critically analyze: are we effectively breaking down those barriers to improve that situation or are we still contributing to those [barriers]?”
Wehkamp further argued that although educating oneself about history is important, so is “acknowledging that we’re not a historic population and starting to engage with aboriginal people in today. Learning more about who we are, how resilient our communities have been, and what our hopes for the future are.”
King’s book came out around the same time as the Idle No More movement began to rise to popularity. King spoke about the difficulty of sustaining political activism, such as public protests like Idle No More. He said that the anger required to rekindle political action “doesn’t disappear, it goes underground. And I think politicians figure, out of sight out of mind. And in that case, they’re wrong about that.”
When asked how his book could contribute to changing Canada’s narrative regarding First Nations, King acknowledged that, “We have a particular mindset in North America and it’s going to take more than one book to get out of it. Will it start a conversation about that? Possibly. Will it sustain a conversation? Not unless something else comes in behind it.”